The Cruelest Prison
by KMC2
Summary: Bob Rebadow reflects on the past...and on choices


This is another glimpse into the mind of Bob Rebadow. OZ...and the characters therein belong to Tom Fontana....IÕm just borrowing them.  
  
The Cruelest Prison  
  
by KMC  
  
IÕve come to a very disturbing conclusion at this late date. God certainly has a very perverse sense of humor. And how do I know this? Well itÕs obvious, isnÕt it? At least it is to me.  
  
When Busmalis and I dug the first tunnel, all I could think of was that fact that soon....very soon...and with a littlle good luck, I would be free. Out of Em city...out of Oz all together. It was a very heady feeling. To be able to walk the streets after so many years of enclosure...confinement...regementation. Every foot we dug brought me closer and closer to...well...freedom. As I said, a heady feeling.  
  
Then we were found out. The sneaky little bastards found out about our tunnel. They got us transfered out of our pod, and the tunnel..and freedom..was theirs. But of course, they underestimated us. Between BusmalisÕ tunneling skills, and my knowledge of architecture...well...they never lived to see the freedom they thought they had stolen from us. Not only sneaky, but insolent...and stupid. And dead. And they donÕt haunt me at all.  
  
The next tunnel...that was a betrayal. I told Busmalis IÕve forgiven him for it...for not telling me...for not taking me with him. But IÕm not sure that I have...not really...not deep inside. He thinks it was the brain tumor that made me act so irrationally, and he wants so hard to believe that, heÕs even forgiven my trying to kill him. He finds the thought of my being sick and maybe even a little insane easier to accept than the thought that I might really have been angry enough, had hated him enough to take his life. And maybe heÕs right. Maybe it was the effect of the tumor that made me think and act that way, angry, reckless...and yes, a little crazy. But I donÕt think that was entirely it. I was very, very angry. And I think I still am, a bit, deep inside where no one, including him, can see.  
  
And now he shows me another tunnel. And for a moment hope flares again. But as I lie here in the dark, dreaming of freedom, I know the truth. God does have a perverse sense of humor...and the cruelest prison is indeed the one that has no bars.  
  
Before, when I had contemplated the possibilities of freedom, I had given no real thought to the actual consequences of escape. I didnÕt want to, because I knew that the dream would never survive a a harsh dose of reality. If I did escape, if I did make it out of OZ...then what? Where would I go...who would I go to? My mother...yet how could she hope to hide me from the police, who would of course be looking for me the minute they knew I wasnÕt where I was supposed to be? How could I do that to her? My son and his family...again...how could I bring the law down on them? And how could I live...a man beyond him prime, with so many wasted years behind him. More that thirty years spent surrounded by four walls...how could I hope to survive, much less live on any realistic level in the world that had left me behind so many years before.  
  
But I hadnÕt thought of those things...I had only thought about being outside...being, for however short a time, in the world again.  
  
But now I was trapped...caged...with bars far more secure than those in the windows and and doors. I was trapped....betrayed if you will...by my own body. My insulin and dialysis dependent body. How could I hope to even survive...much less live...as a fugitive, when it would take only a day or two...or maybe even hours...for my body to break down for want of the medical attention I now needed to live?  
  
How ironic...in being sent to prison I was given a death sentence...which I managed to cheat thanks to collossal human error. Yet now that same death sentence hangs over my head again...and these four walls are all that stand between it and...survival. You canÕt really call it living...not in here.  
  
But I wonder...would it be worth it...to risk death...which would be a certanty...to have...if only briefly...an uncertain freedom?  
  
Freedom...and death, or grey walls and bars...and life, of a sort. I donÕt have much time to choose. 


End file.
